15 Great Grilling Recipes for the 4th of July!
June 30, 2017
Spicing Up Store Bought Pickles
July 10, 2017
by Deuki Hong & Matt Rodbard
A collection of 100 recipes exploring the foods and flavors of Koreatown, a New York Times bestseller and one of the most praised cookbooks of 2016.
This is not your average soft-focus "journey to Asia" kind of cookbook. Koreatown is a spicy, funky, flavor-packed love affair with the grit and charm of Korean cooking in America. Koreatowns around the country are synonymous with mealtime feasts and late-night chef hangouts, and Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard show us why with stories, interviews, and over 100 delicious, super-approachable recipes.
It's spicy, it's fermenty, it's sweet and savory and loaded with umami: Korean cuisine is poised to break out in the U.S., but until now, Korean cookbooks have been focused on taking readers to an idealized Korean fantasyland. Koreatown, though, is all about what's real and happening right here: the foods of Korean American communities all over our country, from L.A. to New York City, from Atlanta to Chicago. We follow Rodbard and Hong through those communities with stories and recipes for everything from beloved Korean barbecue favorites like bulgogi and kalbi to the lesser-known but deeply satisfying stews, soups, noodles, salads, drinks, and the many kimchis of the Korean American table.
– Epicurious: Best Cookbooks of 2016
TSG Review
I love korean BBQ but that is pretty much the limit of my Korean food experience, hope everything else tastes as good as that! I am a little concerned about how many of the recipes have fermented shrimp in them. The pictures look really good and the recipes seem to be fairly straight forward. Think I will start with the Napa Kim Chi!
I followed all of these recipes exactly as written except for the Kimchi, I couldn't do those tiny little shrimp, sorry.
Baechu Kimchi
Napa Cabbage Kimchi
Makes about 2 Quarts
Ddangkong, Fritos, Jwipo
Peanuts, Frito's and Toasted Fish Jerky
Serves 4 to 6 as a snack
Tongdak
Whole Roasted Chicken
Serves 2 to 4
Jangajji
Quick Soy Sauce Pickles
Serves 4
Summary
Apparently my taste leans more to the American version of Asian foods. This book is much more traditional Korean than I am used to but I can see how well the recipes are put together and the short memoirs of other chefs and the high ratings on Amazon leads me to believe that this is a really good cookbook about what you can get at K towns around the country. I have already opened my mind to many new flavors I normally would never try with this book and I am not ready to put it down yet. The recipes are easy to follow and make, it has a small ingredient list but assumes you know what some of these ingredients look like in the store.
It would have saved me about an hour at the international store if they explained what certain ingredients were and which ones out of all the different options to pick. Some of the ones that had me scratching my head were, Saeu-jeot - Fermented Shrimp, Korean rice flour, and Doenjang - bean paste. It's hard to figure it out when most of the products don't have any English in the packaging and you've never had this stuff before. That said, I liked the book and the recipes I enjoyed I liked a bunch, the ones I didn't I hated. I am sure that is just my Middle American tastebuds trying to compensate--and the fact that I don't like fermented shrimp! Get the book, it's mostly good!
